Alone With You Review

Alone With You, a game created by Benjamin Rivers, is a sci-fi story based game that you one hundred per cent need to own. There is no two ways about it, I am in love with this game and I want you to be too.

Completely narrative driven, you are the last survivor, trying to escape with your AI before the planet implodes with you on it. The only way to survive is to look for clues and uncover what has happened to other colonies. While doing so, you go through missions and explore new environments, even visiting the living quarters of your former colleagues. You do not spend the whole game alone though, as you form relationships with four other people, only possible through a holo-sim chamber. All people that worked on the installation, you uncover more about them as you play, learning from their choices and mistakes and hearing different perspectives of the same situation.

Many people are not fond of walking simulators. I have not played enough of them to really form an opinion, but if they are generally like Alone With You, then I think I love them all. At its simplest, Alone With You is just a point and click game, but the flawless blending of load times and the outstanding graphics help create a game I struggled to leave alone. Benjamin Rivers also developed Home, which was an overall successful game, but in no way something a traditional gamer in search of something greater would rave about. Alone With You has taken the best of Home and incorporated it seamlessly into a game that uses its well-developed story and runs with it.

The game runs over the course of three weeks, and the time is used to collect data, which will provide you with enough evidence to protect yourself on the settlement and escape the planet. The four AI characters that you develop relationships with are only possible through this collected data, as your holo-sim builds their lives around what you find. They provide a lot of information and are generally rather chatty people, considering they are not actually with you. Over the course of the many conversations you will have with them, you get a the ability to choose your topics of conversation and change them throughout. Whilst not all of them include important pieces of information, many can change the course of conversation quite dramatically, whilst helping you build relationships with the characters. Also, if you do not find enough data, your conversations with the characters will suffer and your conversations will not be as fruitful as you need them to be.

Exploring your environment is extremely important, as proven by my earlier statement that not finding enough data will impact your conversations. Right off the bat, the game allows you to explore the settlement how you want to, instead of constantly guiding you through. Whilst you have to retrace your steps every night to return to the holo-sim, meaning you become very familiar with its immediate surroundings, its repetitive game play style does not impact the game deeply overall, because you want to rush back to the holo-sim every night just to hear what the characters have to say.

The graphics are beautiful, which makes exploring your surroundings feel like a privilege. The audio for the game is mixed incredibly well, and the score is worthy of awards. With an overall time of around 8 hours spent playing this game, it gets so familiar that you want to continue playing it, long after it finishes. I personally just did not want it to end, so I’m glad there are so many different conversation choices and the multiple endings allow me to stay involved for as long as possible.

People, you need this game. I cannot tell you enough, it is a game that is worthy of your time. It is one of those games you feel envelope you, suck you in and hold you close. It will stick with you long after the roll of the credits; Alone With You truly is a special game.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.